Libraries and Museums: Year In Review 2005

During 2005 libraries coped with requirements of the USA PATRIOT Act, and museums instituted security measures to prevent theft and thwart terrorism; Hurricane Katrina walloped libraries and museums on the U.S. Gulf Coast; and Google’s plan to digitize the books of five major libraries had worldwide implications.

Libraries

The year 2005 again offered proof that libraries were not immune to matters that shaped society. Google, the ubiquitous Internet search service, in late 2004 had announced plans to digitize books from the collections of five great research libraries in the U.S. and Britain. The Christian Science Monitor compared the project to Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press in its importance to the dissemination of knowledge. A test service, Google Print, was launched as digitalization efforts progressed, but in August 2005 Google suspended the operation owing to copyright disputes with publishers and publishing associations. In September a number of authors filed suit on the basis of copyright issues.

Google’s bold venture, however, sparked international ramifications. Hungarian Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany wrote to his counterparts in France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Poland to propose that all these countries begin digitizing the contents of their libraries. Without this effort, he wrote, “this heritage will perhaps not occupy its deserved place in the scholarship of the future.” The director of the French Bibliothèque Nationale publicly worried about “the risk of America reinforcing its crushing domination of future generations’ understanding of the world.” Worldwide, digitalization of library materials was drawing attention. The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) awarded a six-year, $308 million contract to Lockheed Martin to build NARA’s Electronic Records Archives. An op-ed article in the Toronto Star urged the Canadian government to begin work on digitizing much of the content of the national library, and libraries everywhere, notably the British Library (BL), were digitizing their unique materials and mounting them on the Web.

At the Anna Amalia Library in Weimar, Ger., a previously unknown aria composed by Johann Sebastian Bach was discovered. A 27-year campaign by the Italian city of Benevento resulted in an order for the BL to surrender a 12th-century illuminated missal believed to have been looted during World War II. The BL was also facing the loss of the world’s oldest Bible, the Codex Sinaiticus, to a monastery in Egypt. The Codex, which had been housed in the monastery since the 6th century, was removed in the 19th century and purchased by the BL in 1933 from the Imperial Library in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg).

A provision of the USA PATRIOT Act that allowed federal police agencies to demand circulation records and placed a gag order on library workers was hotly debated in both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate as Congress considered renewal of the law. Despite stiff resistance from a coalition of liberals, libertarians, and librarians, the renewals passed, and a conference committee was to attempt to resolve differences in the respective versions. Before that could happen, however, a federal judge lifted a gag order on a Connecticut library that sued the government over the constitutionality of the gag order permitted by the PATRIOT Act. Government lawyers promptly and successfully appealed the ruling, and the gag order was reinstated.

Four public libraries opened in small communities in Nepal through a partnership of individual villages with the U.S.-based READ literacy-advocacy organization. Over the past 15 years, some 35 public libraries had opened in that country. In Imphal, India, protesters torched the Central Library of the state of Manipur. The group that took credit for the act also threatened newspapers and publishing companies that used Bengali script, the language of the library’s 145,000-volume collection.

Hurricane Katrina devastated libraries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Public libraries in Gulfport and Biloxi, Miss., and in the parishes surrounding New Orleans were destroyed. A branch library in Pass Christian, Miss., was described simply as “gone.” In New Orleans the first floor of Dillard University’s library was under water, and the entire Southern University campus might have to be rebuilt. A card catalog in the school’s library had drawers exploded by water-swollen cards. Tulane University and the New Orleans Public Library’s main branch, however, seemed to have escaped major damage. In most areas of the affected region, roofs were ripped off and library collections destroyed. In many cases library workers who evacuated could not learn the fate of their workplaces, and across the country evacuees inundated libraries to communicate with loved ones and file applications for aid from FEMA (the Federal Emergency Management Agency). The Houston Public Library set up temporary libraries in some emergency shelters, and libraries across the country collected books to send to the devastated area. Recovery of libraries and library services, however, would likely take years; the impact of Hurricane Rita was still undetermined.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded $1 million to Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, a nongovernmental organization that used boats to take Internet access and computer training to impoverished villages in Bangladesh. In The Netherlands a public library instituted a program to “lend out,” for 45 minutes of conversation in the library’s coffee shop, people from minority groups. Among these people available to be “checked out” were Roma (Gypsies), Muslims, gays, lesbians, noncriminal drug addicts, and asylum seekers.

Museums

Following a five-year closure, San Francisco’s M.H. de Young Memorial Museum San Francisco’s 110-year-old M.H. de Young Memorial Museum reopened in October with double the previous exhibition space in an earthquake-resistant building. The architecture, by the Swiss firm Herzog & de Meuron, drew a range of comments pro and con.APcelebrated its 110th anniversary in 2005 by reopening in a landmark building designed by Swiss architects Herzog & de Meuron. In addition to offering double the exhibition space of the museum’s previous home, the new building was seismically designed to be a stable base for the city’s art collections; the original de Young Museum had sustained extensive damage in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. A dramatic reminder of the threat that natural disasters posed to museums came in August when punishing Hurricane Katrina devastated the U.S. Gulf Coast. Although the New Orleans Museum of Art survived intact, other Gulf Coast museums suffered significant damage, including the Louisiana State Museum and the Old Capitol Museum of Mississippi History.

In March a $56 million Holocaust Museum opened in Jerusalem, with dignitaries and heads of state from more than 40 countries attending the inauguration. The museum, which replaced Yad Vashem’s old museum, focused on the individual tragedies of the Holocaust victims. Oslo’s Munch Museum reopened in June after a 10-month closure following the theft of Edvard Munch’s masterpieces The Scream and Madonna. In the new museum, Munch’s paintings were secured behind glass and bolted to the walls.

Herzog & de Meuron was the firm in demand for the museum sector in 2005. Besides completing de Young in April, the Pritzker Prize-winning practice completed the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis, Minn., and continued its work on cultural projects, ranging from the Parrish Museum in Long Island, N.Y., to Madrid’s CaixaForum exhibition space.

The global boom in museum building and expansion continued apace during the year. The variety of new museum developments underlined the public’s burgeoning appetite for a wide range of culture. In Naples a museum of contemporary art opened in the 18th-century Palazzo Roccella. In the Swiss capital of Bern, architect Renzo Piano designed a radical museum dedicated to the work of artist Paul Klee. King Abdullah of Jordan inaugurated in Amman the new wing of the National Gallery dedicated to temporary exhibitions. The Museum of World Culture opened in Göteborg, Swed., to show ethnographic treasures from across the world. In San Juan, P.R., Espacio 1414 opened its doors to showcase cutting-edge Latin American art.

There was anxiety among many, however, that the costs for some high-profile buildings were spiraling out of control. Washington’s Corcoran Gallery of Art abandoned its long-planned expansion by superstar architect Frank Gehry when only half of the $170 million funds needed were secured. In January the chairman of the Guggenheim Foundation, Peter B. Lewis, resigned after accusing the trustees and director Thomas Krens of profligacy. In Madrid the Reina Sofia’s new wing opened a year late and €17 million (about $21 million) over budget. There were signs that less-expensive architects were once more gaining favour. Leipzig’s minimalist Museum der bildenden Künste was the first major new museum to be built in eastern Germany since 1945. It was met with wide praise and was built by Hufnagel Putz Rafaelian, a little-known Berlin practice.

In London the terrorist attacks of July 7 and 21 caused a severe drop in the number of museum visits; the National Gallery reported 46% fewer visits in the aftermath of the bombings than it had during the same week a year earlier. New security measures were put in place, and searches of bags became commonplace. Previously, the number of visitors had been at an all-time high, and the success of the abolition of entrance fees in December 2001 continued to buoy attendance. In 2004 there were 75% more visits to museums in the U.K. than in 2001. In 2005 Sweden also dropped admission fees for all state museums. In Paris artists demonstrated outside the Louvre in January after the museum withdrew a traditional exemption that allowed them free admission.

Inside the Louvre the world’s most famous painting, the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, was moved to a renovated and expanded viewing gallery in April. In July Saudi Prince Walid ibn Talal agreed to donate $20 million to the Louvre for the construction of a wing to house Islamic art. The Guggenheim in Bilbao, Spain, unveiled one of the most ambitious and expensive sculptures in modern history when it installed in its vast ground-floor lobby A Matter of Time by American artist Richard Serra. A visitor at the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao, Spain, is dwarfed by A Matter of Time, Richard Serra’s monumental steel sculpture. The display was opened to the public on June 8.APCommemorative dates continued to frame many art exhibitions. The most important anniversary in 2005 was the centenary of the foundation of the Brücke artist group of German Expressionists, including Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Emil Nolde, and Erich Heckel. Unprecedented displays of their art were mounted in museums in Berlin, Hamburg, Madrid, and other European cities.

A number of museums highlighted the art of Africa in 2005. “Africa Remix,” a show on display in London and then Paris, was an attempt to introduce the diversity of contemporary African art. The exhibition coincided with political attempts at the Group of Eight summit to alleviate poverty on the continent. The art and archaeology of Egypt also continued to attract crowds, with a range of exhibitions that showcased treasures from Cairo. In Europe, Egyptian art shows were on display in Paris; Bonn, Ger.; and Cremona, Italy. In the U.S. a dazzling exhibition of artifacts from the tomb of the pharaoh Tutankhamen opened in June at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, beginning a 27-month tour of the country. The show’s organizers hoped that the latest “Tut” would emulate the success of the seminal Tutankhamen show, which attracted some eight million visitors and set traveling show attendance records when it toured the U.S. in 1976–79. Another touring exhibition, “The Quest for Immortality: Treasures of Ancient Egypt,” thrilled audiences in Denver, Las Vegas, and Dayton, Ohio. New York’s Museum for African Art, operating from a temporary location in Queens, started construction work on its new site in Harlem. The federal government agreed to a grant of $3.9 million for the creation of a National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C. American talk-show host Oprah Winfrey was named as a member of the museum’s board.

Major exhibitions of Russian art introduced the country’s collections to a Western audience. The blockbuster “Russia!” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York City presented art ranging from 13th-century religious icons to Moscow’s present day avant-garde. Across the city in the East Village, the Ukrainian Museum moved to a new $9 million home with two floors of galleries for temporary exhibitions. The Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto also staged Russian shows, borrowing many works from St. Petersburg’s State Hermitage Museum. The Hermitage’s director, Mikhail Pyotrovsky, announced plans for a museum in St. Petersburg celebrating Fabergé, the world-famous brand established by Peter Carl Fabergé, goldsmith and jeweler to the tsars of Russia.